1. Field of Disclosure
The disclosure generally relates to the field of text processing for maps, and in particular to shortening geographic location titles on maps.
2. Description of the Related Art
Geographic and political areas typically are divided and subdivided into a hierarchy of administrative areas (or units) at various different levels. For example, China is divided into provinces (or autonomous regions, municipalities), each of the provinces is subdivided into cities (or prefectures), and each of the cities is subdivided into districts (or counties).
A geographic point of interest, or POI, often falls within several administrative areas of different levels of the hierarchy. For example, Fuzhou city No. 5 Middle School is located in China (country level), Fujian province (province level), Fuzhou city (city level), and Gulou district (district level). As a result, a POI title (or name, label) often contains an administrative area prefix identifying the multiple administrative areas the associated POI locates within. For example, the Fuzhou city No. 5 Middle School may bear any of the following English titles: “Fujian Province Fuzhou City Guluo District No. 5 Middle School”, “Fujian Province Guluo District No. 5 Middle School”, “Fuzhou City Guluo District No. 5 Middle School”, and “Guluo District No. 5 Middle School”. The POI titles in other language, such as Chinese, similarly commonly include such administrative area prefixes.
The administrative area prefix of a POI title may be redundant and cause the title unnecessarily long. For example, in a city map of the Fuzhou City, the prefix of “Fujian Province Fuzhou City” in the title “Fujian Province Fuzhou City No. 5 Middle School” is unnecessary because the viewer can infer the fact that the school is located in Fujian province and Fuzhou city from the context of the map.
It is beneficial to keep POI titles short because long POI titles are hard to read and take extra space when displayed on a map, thereby reducing the number of POIs that can be displayed in a given area on the map. Because administrative area prefixes cause long POI names, it is desirable to remove unnecessary administrative area prefixes from POI titles. However, administrative area prefixes sometimes are necessary to properly identify the underlying POIs (e.g., “Beijing University”). Therefore, it is difficult to determine whether a given administrative area prefix of a POI title can be removed to shorten the POI title.
Traditionally shortened POI titles are generated by human editors and thus are subject to human errors. In addition, this approach is expensive, labor-intensive, and insufficient for large-scale POI title generation.